Safe Harbour
by Gold
Summary: Set in the future, the Hyoutei boys are all grownup. Oshitari is oblivious, Gakuto harbours secrets, Shishido is bitter, Ohtori stays away, Hiyoshi tries to understand... and Atobe saves the day. Pairings: OshiGaku, ShishiTori. Rest of Hyoutei gueststar.
1. Chapter 1

© 2006 Gold

**Title**: Safe Harbour

**Part 1**

**Author: **Gold  
**Rating:** PG-13, for language, language, language!!!

**Disclaimer: **_Prince of Tennis _is created by Konomi Takeshi. This work is a piece of fanfiction and no part of it is attributed to Konomi-san or any other entity holding any legal right associated with and arising out of _Prince of Tennis _. It was written purely out of fanservice and it is not to be used for profit or any false association with Konomi-san or aforesaid entities.  
**Pairings and Guests:** Oshitari/Gakuto. Hiyoshi and Shishido guest-star. Atobe squeezes in a mention or two.

* * *

There is a small _ryokan_ tucked away in a discreet corner of Yokohama that Mukahi Gakuto sometimes visits. This is where he goes when he disappears and nobody, not even Atobe Keigo, can find him. Nobody in Tokyo knows where Mukahi Gakuto goes when he disappears; indeed, it is perfectly accurate to conclude that nobody in Tokyo is even aware of Mukahi Gakuto's disappearances.

Gakuto chooses his time and place to remove himself from the reality that is his life; it is not quite as random as it seems on the surface. To the casual observer, there is no discernible pattern to his disappearances, nor to his manner of choosing date, time and length of his disappearance. Nevertheless there is a common thread that runs through, and it can only be unwound by asking Gakuto himself, always provided he gives the answer—or else by reading his mind. This is unlikely to happen at all; Gakuto's closest friends and family know him best, but even they are completely unaware of his disappearances.

Gakuto lives away from his immediate family; they at any rate have some excuse for not being aware of his disappearances. He calls home most days in the week and occasionally returns home during the weekends to have dinner with his parents and his younger brother, who is in his second year in university.

Gakuto's closest friends, on the other hand, see him at least once a week, judging by the number of times a year that they have to get together for their birthdays (nine of them, including Taki Haginosuke's), other people's birthdays (there are fifty-two weeks in a year but they are invited to at least thirty other birthday bashes during the year), and those fancy dining parties and monthly tennis teas hosted by Atobe Keigo. Gakuto's closest friends do not keep tabs on his private life, although they do their best to wheedle and threaten information out of him the way real friends of your heart should. Gakuto's life, as they know it, is full of _joie de vivre_; bright-eyed, vivid and possessed of a hectic presence akin to randomly exploding fireworks, they cannot imagine him living otherwise. But if there is anyone amongst them who ought to be remotely aware, at the very least, of Gakuto's disappearances, that person should be Oshitari Yuushi.

Oshitari Yuushi is Gakuto's closest friend; an old, old friend dating back from the days when they were schoolmates, sometime classmates and frequent first-choice doubles partners on the school tennis team throughout junior high and senior high. They were very good friends back in their salad days in the Hyoutei schools although they were never best friends; now that they're all grown-up, though, Oshitari has become Gakuto's closest friend, and they even share a decent-sized apartment in classy, upscale Azabu together with two other old friends of theirs from Those Salad Days.

Strangely enough, Oshitari Yuushi, who from all appearances is one of those fortunate individuals blessed with brains and street smarts, continues to labour under the strict belief that his very good friend and flat-mate, Mukahi Gakuto, is living a life both fun and fulfilling. Oshitari has some reason for this strict belief of his; he is of the species _homo_ _sapiens_, sub-species _male_, and there is an argument to be made here that it is therefore inherent in him to overlook the obvious and note the banal. Gakuto is eating well, sleeping well (apart from the occasional panda resemblance when he has to film in the wee hours of the morning), has a job many would give their procreative ability for (TV presenter for the hit talkshow _Redheads_ that involves peeks into the personal lives and histories of famous Japanese personalities) and has mood swings that range from being chirpy and demanding ("Yuushi, do this, bring me that, on your way back from work tomorrow, buy me this") to being a little spitfire ("_I'm not talking to you ever again!!!"_). Oshitari knows that as long as Gakuto curses colourfully at him once a day, God's in His Heaven and all's right with the world.

Oshitari knows Gakuto so well, you see, just as well as Gakuto knows him. If they sat down to compare notes on each other, they would find that they know the answers to exactly the same questions, down to every dotted 'i' and every crossed 't'.

Oshitari knows where to buy the only kind of shampoo that fastidious Gakuto uses (cranberry-scented or apple-scented, in an Azabu specialty store, and expensive as heck) and Gakuto's favourite seasons (summer, for the beach and the funny way Yuushi's hair gets all messy because of the heat; winter, for the cold, cold snow and the way Yuushi's eyes laugh at Gakuto's strawberry pink nose—Yuushi says it's the prettiest nose he knows). Oshitari knows just where to find Gakuto's favourite vanilla-chocolate-strawberry-swirl sundae (Jin's Home, a small café in a quiet part of west Tokyo, run by the mother of one of Japan's most famous stuntmen and resident Bad Boy, Akutsu Jin).

Gakuto knows where to buy the only kind of pen Oshitari ever writes with (Mont Blanc Meisterstück Solitaire Gold & Black Classique and insanely expensive; Atobe Keigo gave Yuushi one as birthday present donkey years ago and Yuushi keeps raving about it, so Gakuto has been saving up to give him an entire set from the anniversary collection) and Oshitari's favourite seasons (spring, for the sakura petals and the scent of young love in the air; autumn, for the falling leaves in red and gold and brown and the utter romance of the season). Gakuto knows how to cook Oshitari's favourite foods just the way Oshitari likes it (Yuushi, for all his cosmopolitan, global-village image, is surprisingly hell-bent on the adage North, South, East, West, Home's Best—the way to his heart is through his stomach and paved with Kansai-influenced cuisine).

Oshitari knows that when he sees Gakuto sprawled on the sofa at seven in the morning, face hidden by his favourite cushion (the biggest, plumpest one on the sofa, the one Yuushi and Gakuto brought home from their Hyotei graduation trip to Ankara) and his favourite quilt cover over him (dark blue, patterned with stars), it means Gakuto has come home less than thirty minutes ago and is dead to the world.

Gakuto knows that when he sees Oshitari spritz on something other than his usual Givenchy aftershave at a quarter past seven in the morning, it means that Oshitari is meeting someone special that day (Gakuto knows this, because he buys all of Yuushi's colognes, and he can tell from the cologne just what kind of woman Yuushi is meeting).

Oshitari knows Gakuto so well, you see, just as well as Gakuto knows him.

"_Sempai_—"

It is seven in the morning in a very decent-sized apartment in upscale Azabu district in Tokyo, Japan.

Breakfast table.

Buttered toast, eggs fried sunny-side up with rivulets of dark soy sauce dribbled all over them, freshly squeezed orange juice, ice-cold milk, grilled mackerel with steamed rice, _miso_ soup, pickles, _tamago_ _kake gohan_, _udon_ topped with finely chopped scallions and slices of fishcake and roast pork, and chilled _soba_ waiting in the wings with saucers of light soy sauce.

Hiyoshi Wakashi, a postgraduate student in the Faculty of Business Administration at Waseda University, valued employee of a fledgling online computer game company and part-time teaching assistant to some undergraduate classes at Waseda University, is a surprisingly decent cook. He is also _not_ prone to experimentation, which is one of the most powerful arguments for permanently assigning him the duty of cooking breakfast, one of the most important meals of the day. It was through a series of trial and error with one another's cooking that Hiyoshi's flatmates discovered his culinary skills; consequently, he has been delegated the all-important task of serving up what amounts to a veritable breakfast buffet for them every morning for the last three years and eleven months. (In the first month, experiments proved that the remaining flatmates were disinterested cooks at best and indescribably bad chemistry students at worst. Gakuto, who was a rather decent cook, was given up as a lost case because he frequently produced dishes based on natto, which was not an ingredient that was terribly popular with the others). Breakfast, after all, is the most important meal of the day.

Hiyoshi has gone to school with his flatmates for years. He, Mukahi Gakuto, Oshitari Yuushi and Shishido Ryou have been teammates on the Hyotei tennis teams for as long as any of them can remember. Hiyoshi doesn't have problems with two of his flatmates— it's his third sempai, Mukahi Gakuto, who's a handful even on the best of days and an unmentionable string of expletives on the worst of days.

At the moment, Gakuto is fumbling with his shoes at the door, swathed in a particularly flashy outfit involving a confusing mixture of cranberry-red suede, black fur and many other difficult materials. It would be a fashion disaster of cataclysmic proportions on anyone else but just seems like so much _haute couture_ on Gakuto.

Something in Gakuto's body language tells Hiyoshi that it's one of those days. One of those days when his _sempai_ dresses in a way that garners the immediate attention of every living being within a five hundred mile radius. One of those days when his _sempai_ steps from bedroom to front door, wrapped in a thundercloud trimmed with lightning bolts, and sails out without a word. Those days Hiyoshi knows that his sempai won't be back until the next evening or even later, and that breakfast is the last thing on his _sempai_'s mind. Hiyoshi used to think that those days meant something wasn't quite right with Mukahi Gakuto—Hiyoshi doesn't know what, but he's been disturbed enough to ask his Oshitari-_sempai_ before if those days mean anything. Instead of being anxious, Oshitari-_sempai_ just gets this moony, indulgent look on his face, mixed with something like resignation, and tells Hiyoshi that it's just Gakuto.

Just Gakuto.

There's no pattern to it at all.

Some days Gakuto is just in a mood, Oshitari-_sempai_ says fondly and dismissively. You have to humour him a little.

And Hiyoshi frowns and nods and says nothing, because Oshitari knows Gakuto so well, you see.

So Hiyoshi lets it go.

This is one of those days, Hiyoshi reminds himself. Humour Gakuto-_sempai_. Other days Gakuto-_sempai_ eats and creates food fights that Hiyoshi has to clean up—so maybe it's a good thing.

Sometimes.

"I won't be home for dinner, Gakuto."

Oshitari Yuushi has just arrived on the scene, resplendent in pristine linen suit and dark blue silk tie threaded with pale gold, and Hiyoshi sneezes. He has a sensitive nose, and Oshitari-_sempai_ tends to wear too-powerful whiffs of eau de cologne on the days when he is planning a fancy evening. Oshitari looks remarkably tall, dark and dangerously handsome amidst the beautifully starched folds of ivory linen, and there's something about the tie that throws a burnish on his tanned skin and an added gloss to that dark, blue-black hair.

It is amazing how thunderingly furious Gakuto can look despite the presence of the dorky black velvet fedora and cranberry-red aviator shades perched atop his head:

"_Bloody_ _hell_, I'm out of the country until next Friday, you bloody bastard, so ask your dumb _girlfriend_ to cook, I'm not your servant!!!"

The pure amount of venom in Gakuto's voice surprises even Hiyoshi; every word has been laced with acid and then some.

In the blank silence that follows, Gakuto marches out in high dudgeon, and the front doors slam and bolt behind him.

A whole minute goes by; sixty seconds have never been longer.

Then Shishido Ryou puts down his half-eaten buttered toast. "He's right. You're a right bloody bastard, Oshitari, if you don't even know that he's out of the country. Hell, even _I_ know." Shishido pushes back his chair and gets up to leave.

Gakuto's temper is old news to Oshitari, but sass from Shishido Ryou is _persona non grata_ in Oshitari's world. There is something astonishingly hard in Oshitari's face now, and Hiyoshi doesn't remember Shishido's quietly classic features being so sharp and bitter as they are now. Sometimes, Hiyoshi thinks, watching as Oshitari and Shishido face off, he would have preferred it if they could have remained schoolboys forever, left behind in that time so long ago, when they actually had good reason to fight each other, and they did so on rolling green courts under bright blue skies and brilliant sunshine, with a kind of fierce, happy pride that seemed to burn in them in everything they did. But they are schoolboys no longer, and whatever they have left sometimes feels suspiciously like a rot that gnaws away at those old bonds that should have been forged unbreakable in the heat of hellfires.

Outside, an airplane sails across the sky, leaving a trail of faint white behind it, and Hiyoshi turns his face towards the window of blue sky and brilliant sunshine, and wishes that he could stand on those green courts again.

Downstairs, a black saloon speeds by, and there is a loud bang.

Something cranberry-red and black and ivory arcs through the air, landing slap against a wall, and then slides down so that only cranberry-red can be seen against that wall.

This, maybe, is the beginning of the end of the story for a brilliant, talented little boy who dyed his hair cranberry-red and played tennis in a flashy, inimitable acrobatic style to stand out in a crowd of other brilliant, talented schoolchildren in one of Japan's premier schools.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

**Title**: Safe Harbour

**Part 2**

**Author: **Gold  
**Rating:** PG-13

**Disclaimer: **_Prince of Tennis _is created by Konomi Takeshi. This work is merely a piece of fanfiction and no part of it is attributed to Konomi-san or any other entity holding any legal right associated with and arising out of _Prince of Tennis _. It was written purely out of fanservice and it is not to be used for profit or any association with Konomi-san or aforesaid entities.  
**Pairings and Guests:** Oshitari/Gakuto. All of Hyoutei guest-star. Ohtori pines.  
**Warning**: Ohtori Choutarou is the mainstay of this chapter. Naturally, the Ohtori/Shishido fic bunnies came bopping up. So... I guess this part is about Oshitari/Gakuto _and_ Ohtori/Shishido.

* * *

Ohtori Choutarou has been away for nearly four whole years, but he remembers his Gakuto-_sempai_ well.

Gakuto-_sempai_ went through Hyotei a little bit like exploding fireworks—unexpected, brilliant and vivid, and with just the slightest bit of a bite if you got too close. Alternately adored and feared by the combined populace of all the Hyoutei schools, Gakuto-_sempai_ always had too quick and too direct a tongue to be beloved by many, and his temper was likened to a cat o' nine tails that stripped the skin off noses and more if one didn't get out of the way fast enough. His build was slight and slender, but he was very strong and surprisingly sturdy, and the way he played tennis was similar to the way he moved—eye-catching, gravity-defying and utterly breathtaking.

So when Gakuto-_sempai_ was spotted by one of Japan's premier talent agencies and handpicked as The Next Big Thing, Ohtori Choutarou was not surprised. He had never met anyone as alive as his _sempai_, and there was something special about the way Gakuto-_sempai_ lit up television screens and those large advertising screens.

Ohtori knows that the entertainment world is a place where there is no humanity and where flesh is sold for favour, both metaphorically and literally, but Gakuto-_sempai_ seems above all that – maybe it is because Atobe-_sempai_ and Sakaki-_kantoku_ have him under their protection. At any rate, Gakuto-_sempai_ seems satisfied. Ohtori has never told anyone this, but he watches Gakuto-_sempai_'s show religiously, because Gakuto-_sempai_ always seems so real and alive there, and it makes Ohtori think of those days a very long time ago, when he was tanned all over from playing with Shishido-_san_ long hours in the sun, and Gakuto-_sempai_ used to make them hoot and applaud with the way he could somersault and cartwheel over just about everything.

And it is all so dreadfully, _horribly_ wrong, when Ohtori has to come back to Tokyo because Gakuto-_sempai_, who has always been so alive, is now a comatose figure under stark white sheets in the best hospital that money can buy in Japan, with Atobe Keigo's own personal physicians in attendance.

In Gakuto-_sempai_'s room, Atobe-_sempai_ has ordered (because it offends Atobe-_sempai_'s sense of fashion otherwise) that the bedsheets be changed to a dark blue, gold-threaded set that has been specially purchased to match the dark blue, Milky-Way-patterned quilt that covers Gakuto-_sempai_. It is Gakuto-_sempai_'s favourite quilt, which Oshitari-_sempai_ picked up from his trip to London just last year. Even the cream leather sofa in the room comes with Gakuto-_sempai_'s favourite cushion, the outsize one from Turkey, in a custom-made silver velvet cover lavishly embroidered with little satiny Hyoutei crests all over it. Gakuto-_sempai_ himself, who seems to be practically mummified in bandages, is a ghastly sort of dead white, except for what's left of the cranberry-red hair that peeks out from under those bandages.

Oshitari-_sempai_ is standing very still by Gakuto-_sempai_'s bed, in a frozen, detached sort of way. But Ohtori knows, because Hiyoshi has told him, that Oshitari-_sempai_ has refused to leave Gakuto-_sempai_'s bedside since it happened six days ago.

Oshitari-_sempai_'s research supervisor has been calling him, because he hasn't attended their last three scheduled sessions (even though they are being held at the very hospital that Gakuto-_sempai_ is in) and his research partners (one Yagyuu Hiroshi and one Yanagi Renji) don't seem to be too worried about it; Oshitari-_sempai_'s parents are bewildered and they don't understand; and Oshitari-_sempai_'s soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend ('soon-to-be-ex' because it is pretty patently obvious where that relationship is going now) is upset with him, because he hasn't been to see her for six full days and she's throwing fits of fury.

Gakuto-_sempai_'s parents are touched, but they don't understand either. Every day, Gakuto-_sempai_'s mother thanks them from the bottom of her heart and gently says that really, they can leave, and it's all right. She knows that they all have their own lives.

But Oshitari-_sempai_ doesn't care.

Oshitari-_sempai_ doesn't have the time to care for anyone, save that quiet figure under the dark blue, galaxy-starred quilt. It's because all the time that Oshitari-_sempai_ will ever have to care for Gakuto-_sempai_ may be now—and no more.

And Ohtori wonders if this is a lesson to them all, him included — and if this is a sign. Maybe if, instead of pretending that everything's all right, and imagining that it's only time that's driven them apart — instead of believing that things have changed because that's all that's left to believe in — he should step forth and go boldly where he has always wanted to go, but never dared to —

—because, you see, he never wants to be where Oshitari-_sempai_ is now, standing helplessly by Gakuto-_sempai_'s bedside.

Never.

Maybe if they could all turn back time, it would be best.

What would they change?

"Oi, Choutarou."

"H-hai, Shi—"

Ohtori pauses, mouth half-open with surprise, his mind spinning, spiraling, twisting almost out of control... did Shishido-_san_ just…?

Something brushes past him softly, a quick flash of nut-brown colour, a brief touch of warm skin, a familiar scent on the wind…

"Same place. Fifteen minutes."

_Same place.__ Fifteen minutes._

Time has stopped.

And Shishido Ryou has walked out.

Ohtori knows he should follow, but something holds him frozen in place, and—

"Stop wondering, Ohtori, and _go_."

Ohtori jerks slightly and blinks. He remembers then that there are other people in the hospital room:

Atobe-_sempai_, cool and business-like in dark purple Armani with lapels of black silk;

Jirou-_sempai_, with wide-awake eyes hidden under pale, gold-brown, red-tinted curls;

Kabaji, like a very stolid, reassuring oblong of hulking wood behind Atobe-_sempai_;

Taki-_sempai_, glumly hugging Gakuto-_sempai_'s favourite cushion;

Hiyoshi, arms folded grimly as he stands silently in the farthest corner of the room.

It is Atobe-_sempai_ who has spoken, and under normal circumstances, his word is law, and Ohtori's body has automatically begun to follow orders, but still Ohtori forces his body back under his control and hesitates.

Atobe-_sempai_ is not looking at him; his face is turned towards the pathetic little tableau in the room, of Gakuto-_sempai_, kept alive only by a mountain of white gauze, plastic tubes, long metal needles and humming machinery, and Oshitari-_sempai_, limp and helplessly frozen beside him.

"Life," says Atobe-_sempai_ flatly, without any consideration whatsoever for anybody's feelings, "is very short, Ohtori."

So very short.

"Ohtori. What are you waiting for?"

What, indeed?

Ohtori bolts.

Less than ten minutes. Maybe he won't make it in time. But he knows that even if he is late, Shishido Ryou will still be waiting there for him, at the same place—the street tennis courts of yesteryear, where they honed their game and friendship, and where they first began, all those years ago. This time, Ohtori won't simply cut and run the way he did all those years ago. He has something very important that he wants to say and there has never been a better opportunity. —Well, that isn't really true, since there _have_ been better opportunities before, but he doesn't wish to throw away any more chances, because he might never get another one again. He never wants to be the way Oshitari Yuushi is now, standing helplessly by Mukahi Gakuto's bedside, just waiting… waiting.

He just hopes that Shishido-_san_ feels the same way. And even if Shishido-_san_ doesn't…

Ohtori takes a deep breath. He will cross that bridge later, if it comes to that. For now, he will start first by re-building the bridges he burnt so long ago.

* * *


End file.
